Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino: "We wanted to fit our style, and pizzica, into the idea of a Western pop song"

The curvy Coca-Cola bottle has long been used as a vessel for the homemade tomato purée that’s traditionally prepared in southern Italy, when the summer sun makes San Marzano tomatoes juicy and ripe, ready to be preserved and enjoyed throughout the winter. The cover of Canzoniere, the new album from Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino, features an illustration of the iconic bottle as a visual symbol of their music. Trance-inducing, frenzied tambourines are augmented by energetic dancing, which is matched by sharp fiddle, soaring diatonic accordion, dense bagpipes drones and phrases, incisive and rocking plucked strings, subtle keyboard layers, raw-voiced singing and soulful choruses. With this, Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino have succeeded in taking the pizzica tradition from the heel of Italy to audiences worldwide, and received much critical acclaim.

“Our grandparents in the south of Italy used all sorts of glass containers, particularly the Coke bottle, for their homemade tomato sauce. Just like them, we use songs as a container for our own homemade sauce: our music, our words, our lives. That’s why the artwork ‘Coca-Cola, 2015’, created by Casa a Mare, was the perfect visual representation of our new project,” explains multi-instrumentalist Mauro Durante. He’s the violinist, tamburello (frame drum) player and leader of the band from the Salento peninsula, the southernmost part of Italy’s Puglia region, home to some of the most vibrant local music.

For many, Salento is synonymous with pizzica, the driving 6/8 or 12/8 rhythm dance that belongs to the wider genre of tarantella, though pizzica is more intricate for its shifting accents in relation to the beat. It exists in various forms: the playful dance pizzica-pizzica, the therapeutic-ritual pizzica tarantata, and pizzica scherma (a type of fencing dance). Pizzica has mainly been associated with tarantism, an ancient belief based around the illness purportedly caused by the bite of the tarantula, and the musical exorcism of its effects through trance-like ritual dances. However, Salento traditional music includes more than pizzica: forms such as call-and-response stornelli, work-songs, ballads, serenades and songs in Griko, the language of the Greek minority who have inhabited the Lecce region for centuries and why the region is often called Grecìa Salentina (Greek-speaking Salentino).

Tarantism died out in the 20th century, but its music and legacy have been embraced by many groups playing traditional and updated styles. Pizzica is no longer regarded with scorn and merely associated with suffering and rural poverty, as it was in the past. Now a cultural and musical movement has developed to make pizzica an assertion of local identity – a cathartic way to heal the bite of today’s social ills. Additionally, cultural patrimony and the marketing of local cultural identity has paved the way to the success of Salento as a unique musical destination. Pizzica has become the main attraction at the annual gathering and festival, La Notte della Taranta, which is held in the town of Melpignano, in the Griko-speaking area of Salento.

Two years ago, Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino (CGS) celebrated their 40th anniversary with the album Quaranta (a Top of the World in #109). Mauro Durante assumed the mantle of leadership of CGS in 2007 from his father Daniele, who founded the band in the mid-70s alongside his cousin, the writer and cultural agitator Rina Durante, as part of the main folk revival wave in southern Italy. Today’s CGS is a tremendous outfit, with a new line-up of highly accomplished musicians: tamburello player and singer Giancarlo Paglialunga; diatonic accordionist Massimiliano Morabito; flute, harmonica and zampogna (bagpipes) player Giulio Bianco; and singer and bouzouki player Emanuele Licci (another second-generation CGS musician, son of original band member Roberto Licci). Dancer and backing vocalist Silvia Perrone adds a theatrical flair to their gigs.

For their latest line-up, Salento-born singer Alessia Tondo replaces vocalist Maria Mazzotta (now partnering with the Albanian cellist Redi Hasa – their album Novilunio is reviewed in Songlines #134). “Alessia is a terrific singer, musician and lyricist,” says Durante. “Her voice brings us depth, either when she leads or when she backs the main vocalists. I try to feature her different characteristics: sweetness and warmth on ‘Tienime’, rhythm and flexibility on ‘Quannu Te Visciu’, energy and pathos on ‘Aiora’. She also contributed lyrics for three songs, increasing the number of our narrators.”

All the musicians in CGS are leading exponents of Salentino music, which they have studied and researched extensively; they are proud to explore new paths in order spread it all over the world. On Canzoniere, some prominent guests appear, such as Justin Adams who adds his guitar on the energetic ‘Aiora’. Durante explains: “Justin, a friend, was just perfect for it! He has great experience in world music and a great groove. Besides, he belongs to that rare stock of electric guitarists who don’t need to show off to stand out. He seeks the right sound; that single note or idea that could fit the song.” Another new contributor is multicultural artist, Piers Faccini, who takes the lead with his sultry singing on ‘Subra Sutta’, with Middle Eastern violin melodies and Punjabi-inspired percussion. For their previous albums, Focu d’Amore (2010), Pizzica Indiavolata (2013) and Quaranta (2015), CGS arranged traditional pizzica dances and songs, or wrote a few new compositions dealing with current issues (such as the refugee crisis, and social and environmental topics). Canzoniere, which translates as ‘Songbook’, is an ambitious, adventurous departure. It pushes at the boundaries of Salentino music and takes it to another dimension of world music, one where traditional structures amalgamate with elegant harmony vocals, programming, anthemic songs and rousing rhythms. Of course, the challenge for such an innovative band is how to balance traditional language with their individual creativity and sensibility. Durante explains: “It fulfils our desire to write songs. We wanted to fit our style, and pizzica, into the idea of a Western pop song. The common thread in the album has been to convey our instruments and language, our rhythmical, harmonic and visceral side, within the form of a song. We didn’t change our nature or our core sounds, we didn’t pretend to be who we are not – we just wrote songs our own way.”

And what was the compositional process? Durante explains how, following triumphant world tours in which audiences and international press were hooked by their energetic staging, whirling dances and raw-voiced, soulful songs, he flew to New York. “The album was created between Salento and New York City, where I spent various months between the end of 2015 and the beginning of 2017, travelling back and forth between tours,” he says. “Our US publishers Mark Gartenberg and Eric Beall suggested that I to go to NYC and have some co-writing sessions. Their idea was to combine our style with a form that could be familiar to everyone to widen our audience. We met musicians and producers who were not familiar with Salentino music, but wished to have a try. Finally, the songs that I wrote with Michael Leonhart, Steve Skinner, Joe Mardin, Scott Jacoby and Rasmus Bille Bänchke ended up on the album. Some of the songs were created while I was across the ocean, then amended and completed with my fellow bandmates in Lecce. Some were created at home , then taken to America. Meeting those people has been one of the most challenging and exciting experiences in my life.”

Joe Mardin, the son of the legendary Arif Mardin, produced and mixed the disc, and Grammy winner Joe La Porta was the mastering engineer. What was it like working with Mardin? “He co-wrote three songs and another one along with Piers Faccini,” Durante says. “I had an immediate and natural affinity with him. He has a huge musical culture and sensibility. He inherited the wonderful legacy of his father’s work. I felt it was natural to ask him to be the producer and mixing engineer of the album. He approached the band with humility and enthusiasm, managing to get the best from each one of us. We felt privileged for having the pleasure of working with him.”

The opener, ‘Quannu te Visciu’ (When I See You), starts with an outlandish spoken-word loop, then continues in a simple melody with lively vocal harmonies. The following, poetical ‘Lentu’ (Wind), sung by the ‘ancient’ voice of Giancarlo Paglialunga, is thrilling, while keyboards and acoustic instruments merge on ‘Moi’ (Now), another highlight of the album. ‘Lo Giustacofane’ (The Mender) shows that the metaphor of healing is still part of the lyrics: ‘there is no wound that can’t be healed.’ Indeed, it’s a song that comments on a very current issue, as Durante states: “It is about being able to withstand the blows of life, staying strong, and protecting everything that is worth fighting for, even when we are hurt. Take the fight of No TAP Committee [TAP is the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline to be built along the Apulian coast], a long-living way of life is now under attack by unscrupulous economic choices. The video evokes that with the surreal presence of giant heads planted in the ground. They represent the totem of our roots and culture – it’s our heritage to be defended.”

Elsewhere, ‘Pizzica De Sira’, the only traditional song from the band’s old repertoire, displays the seven-piece outfit in full flight. Licci’s voice is the protagonist in the cutting-edge ‘La Ballata degli Specchi’ (The Ballad of the Mirrors); ‘Sempre cu Mie’ (With Me Forever) is another winning love song with Tondo and Paglialunga’s superlative vocals, while the stylish pizzica ‘Intra la Danza’ (Into the Dance) quickly pulls you in and holds on.

As Durante points out: “Canzoniere is about our hands – the way we need them to touch and be in touch with people. To hug and make love, to defend our relationships and our natures, to fix what’s broken and to resist.” He adds that Canzoniere is their raccolto di canzoni (harvest of songs) and adds that the Italian word for harvest is a pun on raccolta, meaning song collection. “Metaphorically, we planted and grew each song with care and love. Only after their full growth and maturity did we decide to harvest them. Our songbook is one body made of 12 songs, that all together tell the story of today’s CGS.” It’s an important and irresistible narrative. 

+ Canzoniere is a Top of the World in Songlines #134 (January/February 2018)